Then the Natural Resources Defense Council gets involved. The City tried to purchase pollution credits from the Los Angeles air basin for the natural gas portion of the plant since there were not enough local credits for purchase. But the NRDC filed suit against the purchase and prevailed. The NRDC bills itself at "The Earth's Best Defense".

The unions and the environmental groups purportedly support green projects, but they in fact, often oppose them for environmental reasons. And Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) recently expressed opposition to solar panels in the Mojave Desert which is ideally suited for solar power in the state.

The green energy projects were supposed to create jobs for California workers according to Schwarzenegger. However, while there were jobs created for this project, many of those jobs went to lawyers.